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Here’s a quick list of points you may want to consider using when you write your representatives urging them to oppose gun control. Please do not copy verbatim; please do personalize with your own words. I would not recommend using them all at once; letters tend to be more effective when shorter and succinct. Instead, write multiple letters! Actual mailed letters garner more attention than phone calls or emails (although you should call and email too).

Update: Tom Gresham points out [via his podcast] that snail mail may take as long as 3 weeks to reach the intended congressman or senator due to added security added after the anthrax scares. The meetings and decisions of this issue are being made now. Post cards may get through quickly but to be sure, call and email too. Mr Gresham is also requesting we all pledge to write, call and email each of our three reps once a week for the next 8 weeks. By then we should have a better idea of how this will shake out.

Law passed during high emotion is bad law. Do not pass a law for the sole appearance of ‘doing something’. The facts are on the side of individual liberty.

Existing laws do not stop killers and none of the proposed laws in the wake of the Newtown shooting would have stopped the shooter. He killed his mother [illegal] and stole her guns [illegal and bypassed access restrictions] took them within the 1000 ft ‘no gun’ zone of a school [illegal], forced his way into the school [illegal] and committed multiple acts of murder [illegal]. Will you make it ‘more illegal’ to do so?

The term “Assault Weapon” is a propaganda tool to demonize the most common semi-auto firearms in use today. Apparently some think that ‘looking scary’ is reason enough to eliminate the rights of the people. Dianne Feinstein even admits to using a picture book to determine what features should be banned

We tried an ‘Assault Weapon’ ban before. When it was passed, crime didn’t decrease; when it expired, crime didn’t increase.

During the previous AWB, the (anti-gun) CDC released a report that gun laws do not reduce crime, stating “The Task Force found insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness of any of the firearms laws or combinations of laws reviewed on violent outcomes.”

Blame the murderer not the tool. Millions of law abiding citizens are not responsible. Laws restricting citizens’ access to efficient defense tools are absurd and offensive.

Semi-auto firearms are by far the most common firearms. They have been around for over a century. They are commonly used for hunting; Teddy Roosevelt hunted with one. [P.S. – the 2nd Amendment is not about hunting.]

Predators often operate in packs. Standard capacity (a.k.a high capacity) magazines protect an individual from multiple assailants. Not all shots fired under stress hit; single hits rarely incapacitate. [police defensive use stats show they only connect about half the time]. If a home invasion involves 3 attackers and each attacker takes 3 hits to stop, assuming a 50% hit ratio, that’s 18 shots fired in order to successfully defend oneself.

If you allow the opposition to define a ‘bad’ number of rounds a firearm may hold (i.e. 30 rounds is ‘bad’), you also grant them the power to change that number at any time afterward (‘anything more than zero’) because you have validated their ability to define the term. Furthermore, what other Rights would they require a demonstrated need for before you could exercise them?

The push for licensed concealed carry in Texas began in part to a mass shooting (Killeen Luby’s). Our response was to arm ourselves against predators not create more victims. And violent crime went down.

“Gun Free Zones” only create “Victim Disarmament Zones”. The Aurora movie theater murderer drove past several other theaters showing the same movie, choosing to go to the only theater with ‘No guns’ signs. If the legal punishment for committing (multiple) homicide isn’t enough to deter a criminal, why would a sign that says “Gun Free Zone”.

President Obama and David Gregory both say they don’t recommend guns in schools yet send their children to a school with armed security. About a third of schools in the US already have armed security. A Sheriff’s Deputy was present at Columbine and he engaged and hindered the killers, preventing more death from occurring. Having trained personnel (whether police, security guards school administrators and teachers, or regular citizens) on site with access to secured firearms serves to prevent mass murder attempts and greatly reduces response time needed to end them.

When mass shootings are stopped Armed Citizens save lives and reduce casualties by 84% compared to waiting for 911 responders.

Your assignment is to have a letter to each of your Senators and Representative in the mail tomorrow. Obama is pressing to pass something by the end of the month. Furthermore there may be a ‘stealth scheme‘ to undermine our rights more quickly. Don’t waste time; get to work!